TELEVISION; Don't Worry, Bedtime's Safe With the Lads

By ALESSANDRA STANLEY

Published: March 1, 2009

CORRECTION APPENDED

THE nation elected its first African-American president, yet every single host of a late-night network talk show is white, male and mainstream. Still.

That convention remains unchallenged even now, when seismic change is at hand, at least by industry standards. After 16 years hosting ''Late Night'' on NBC, Conan O'Brien will replace Jay Leno on ''The Tonight Show'' in June. It's a momentous transfer of power, though perhaps less like Johnny Carson's retirement than Vladimir Putin's shift from president of Russia to prime minister -- Jay Leno isn't actually leaving; he will continue to precede Mr. O'Brien on a new, not-quite-as-late-night talk show at 10 p.m.

Jimmy Fallon, a ''Saturday Night Live'' alumnus, takes over the ''Late Night'' slot left by Mr. O'Brien this week, where he will compete with Jimmy Kimmel on ABC and Craig Ferguson, who follows ''Late Show With David Letterman'' on CBS. In other words, viewers are once again faced with what Mr. Leno refers to as ''the parade of white guys.''

It isn't just that all these faces look alike, or that all the hosts sit behind desks, deliver an opening monologue and then banter with the same roster of actors and celebrities. With only minor variations in tone and degrees of silliness, these men also share a comic sensibility. Mr. Kimmel so worshiped Mr. Letterman as a high school student that his license plate was ''L8-Nite.''

There is a reason why networks continue to put these programs on the air even though their overall audience keeps shrinking: dramatic series and sitcoms can cost 10 times as much to produce. But it is puzzling that in an age when viewers have hundreds of after-dinner choices including an Ambien-induced night's sleep there is even less diversity in late-night network comedy than there was 20 years ago when Arsenio Hall had a syndicated show.

It's not that networks fear change, though they do. Audiences don't reward it or need it. And that is something to bear in mind when it turns out that Mr. Fallon's ''Late Night'' turns out to look a lot like Mr. O'Brien's, and Mr. O'Brien on ''Tonight'' does pretty much exactly what he did on ''Late Night.'' (He is even bringing back Andy Richter, his sidekick for the first seven years of ''Late Night.'')

The talk-show host's goal isn't to stand out and be different; it's to blend in.

And there is a perfectly good reason. In a universe where a viewer can watch anything at any time -- SportsCenter, Comedy Central, nature films, Warner Brothers cartoons or Thai pornography -- hosts like Leno, Letterman, O'Brien, Fallon, Kimmel and Ferguson offer a united front of safe boundaries at bedtime.

Each night a network talk show repeats a ritual of civility that is both intimately familiar and a total fantasy -- a relaxed Thanksgiving dinner where no daughter-in-law bolts from the table in tears.

Some critics complain that the art of conversation died with Jack Paar and Johnny Carson, but that's not really fair. Night after night movie stars, authors, politicians and athletes are flattered, teased, cajoled and corralled into pithy disquisitions. At the worst, they can be banal; at best, the viewer feels like a guest at a dinner party where the conversation is spirited, and nobody drones on about his thyroid surgery or her child's SAT scores.

Predictability is part of the transaction and makes those rare unexpected moments all the more welcome, whether it is Mr. Letterman humoring an incoherent Joaquin Phoenix or Mr. Kimmel teasing an earnest Tyler Perry about his allegiance to Oprah Winfrey. (''When you are friendly with Oprah, does Gayle get jealous?'')

The formula hasn't changed since the early days of Steve Allen and Jack Paar: celebrity star turns and smooth banter punctuated by animal acts and moments of inspired inanity. Mr. Letterman didn't invent absurdist pranks: Mr. Paar once shuffled the cue cards in the middle of a Robert Goulet-Judy Garland duet.

The charm isn't seeing a host discomfited by an ill-prepared celebrity, it's watching an experienced entertainer draw a sliver of comedy out of an uncomfortable moment or humorless guest. It's diverting, and effortlessly so. The hosts -- male, middle-American, middlebrow, middle-aged or close to it -- are easy to like: subversive enough to poke holes in pomposity or pretension and make us laugh, but not so offbeat or marginal that they seem to be laughing at us. Mr. Fallon may seem more boyish and antic than his predecessors, but he shares their engaging good manners. (He made Martha Stewart laugh while making chili on her show, and she is rarely distracted.)

Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert, meanwhile, are too steeped in political satire and current events to let us forget our troubles. And the best comedians -- Larry David, Dave Chappelle or Sarah Silverman -- don outr?omic personas that discomfit as well as amuse.

A host who is daringly different breaches the contract: it's not civility, it's the breakdown, and however funny and cathartic that can be for a while, the pleasure is not a lasting one. In 1986 Joan Rivers tried to host her own late-night show on Fox and flopped. Mr. Chappelle was brilliant on his own Comedy Central series, but he flamed out after two years and disappeared.

Correction: March 8, 2009, Sunday
An article last Sunday about late-night talk shows that compared the competition between Jay Leno and David Letterman to the one between Mozart and another composer misspelled the name of Mozart's rival. He was Salieri, not Solieri.